Kenji

Five Hard Truths You Need To Accept

October 17, 2010 by Kenji 11 Comments

Ignoring the hard truths of life is a dangerous thing to do. Unfortunately, because the truth is so damn scary, it’s something we all do from time to time. In order to ignore them we tell ourselves lies–lies that warp our view of reality to the point where we’re incapable of knowing the actions we can take in order to make real changes for the better.

Coming face to face with realities that we may have been denying for years is by no means an easy thing to do. We pretend we’re not overweight by wearing bulkier clothes so that we don’t have to do anything about it. We fantasize that things will go well for us in the future so that we can feel better about watching TV and playing video games. We blame our problems on other people so that we don’t have to take responsibility for them. By not accepting the truth, we take the easy way out.

But there comes a point when these lies are no longer satisfactory, when you take a look at your life and realize that reality is far removed from the delusions you’ve created for yourself. You get fed up, and finally you decide to stop telling yourself lies and face reality head-on.

I came to this point about a year and a half ago, and of all the hard truths in life that I’ve avoided, I have found the following five to be the hardest to accept. Upon accepting them, however, I’ve found them to be the most liberating. It’s important to understand these truths and the lies we use to avoid them so that we can get back to leading our lives the way we really want to.

Hard Truth #1: Your problems are your own, no one else’s

The lie we create to avoid this truth
“It’s (My parent’s/the economy’s/my disability’s/my colleague’s/the government’s) fault that I’m experiencing all the misfortune I’m having now.”

Why this lie is dangerous
When you blame external factors for your problems you effectively place them out of your scope of control. When you think your problems are other people’s fault and not your own it’s easy to believe you can’t do anything about them. This gives you an easy excuse to not do anything at all to improve your situation.

What we should tell ourselves instead
“There are some aspects to my life that I’m not happy with, but I’m not going to make excuses just to make myself feel better. My problems are my responsibility and no one else’s. It’s up to me to solve them.”

Hard Truth #2: No One Owes You Anything

The lie we create to avoid this truth
“People are naturally going to want to (help me/hire me/support me/choose me) because of how smart and special I am.”

Why this lie is dangerous
When you feel entitled to something that you want without really earning it, you set yourself up for a lot of disappointments. When you don’t get what you want you’ll probably tell yourself it’s someone else’s fault (see hard truth #1), and blaming other people is not a good way to win friends.

What we should tell ourselves instead
“People will only help me out when I prove my worth through my actions, not just talk.”

Hard Truth #3: There are No Shortcuts

The lie we create to avoid this truth
“There must be some way to (get rich/become famous/ be successful) that’s easy and won’t take much time. I just haven’t found my angle yet.”

Why this lie is dangerous
When you tell yourself that there must be an easy way to succeed, you’ll be chasing the quick buck instead of investing your time and efforts into honest, hard work. You’ll eat up the words of the hucksters who promise “surefire systems” that’ll get you rich in under six months. In most cases, all you’ll be left with is a $500 hole in your pocket and a set of 12 worthless DVDs. Even worse, you could lose your life-savings on some “safe bet” stock that went *poof*. Looking for shortcuts is a surefire path to frustration.

What we should tell ourselves instead
“The only surefire path to success is hard work. There may be some shortcuts out there, but they are so few and far between that it’s much easier to do something simple, honest and valuable than to look for them.”

Hard Truth #4 Superman Won’t Swoop Down to Save You

The lie we create to avoid this truth
“Everything’s going to be okay when (The economy gets better/I get a big promotion/I win the lottery/I become a reality TV star)”

Why this lie is dangerous
Just as it’s easy to blame the bad economy for your misfortunes, it’s also easy to expect that the government will pass some magic law that will make them all go away. The solutions to your problems will come from you, not anyone or anything else. When you wait for someone or something else to solve them, they will most definitely persist.

What we should tell ourselves instead
“I must rely on myself first to solve my problems. No one’s going to do it for me. I make my own luck through persistence and hard work. I don’t need to wait to win the lottery. I can take steps today to make the money and do some good while I’m at it.”

Hard Truth #5: Dreams Don’t Come True Just by Thinking About Them

The lie we create to avoid this truth
“Someday I’ll be a successful(actor/writer/singer/CEO/President of the United States)”

Why this lie is dangerous
Oftentimes fantasies like this are but short lived escapes from reality. When you avoid reality, you limit yourself from seeing the necessary steps that you can take to change your it.

What we should tell ourselves instead
“What actions can I take today to accomplish my goals?”

Facing these truths can be frightening at first. But once you begin to accept them instead of avoiding them, you can be surprised how many paths open up for you. The more accurate your view of reality is, the more power you have to change it. Accepting these hard truths is the first step in claiming that power.

Three Guerrilla Tactics for Your Job Hunt

October 5, 2010 by Kenji 7 Comments

Guerilla Job Hunter — This guy does not use Craigslist.

When contending with a superior force, the worst possible strategy is to face your enemy head-on. Unfortunately, this is what most people do on the job hunt. They scan the listings on Monster.com and Craigslist, shoot off resumes and sit and hope. If you do this, know that hundreds if not thousands of applicants are doing the exact same thing as you. Responding to job postings through online forms is only really effective if your profile matches a job spec by 80% or more. Any resume that doesn’t will be deleted and sent to the void.

Although some people get lucky with the head-on approach, it’s much more effective to use guerrilla tactics, to make quick strikes and snipes, to target presidents and line-managers rather than the HR foot soldiers on the front lines, and to gather as much intelligence as you can to know when to make the right move.

If you have a generalist resume like mine, adopting guerrilla tactics for your job hunt becomes a necessity.

Here are some guerrilla tactics helped me get a job at a Seattle startup in just one week:

Guerrilla Tactic #1: Determine your most valuable targets

Look online for a list of companies in an industry that you’re interested in. Google makes finding this kind of information pretty easy. For me, it didn’t take long before I found a list of the top 100 tech startups in Seattle. When contacting people at these companies, an Excel file can be very handy to keep track of your activity.

Something like this should do nicely:

Company Name	Contact Name	Contact Email	Contact Phone	Notes
Spaceley’s Sprockets	George	[email protected]	N/A	We’ll schedule a meeting later
Shinra Electric Power Company	Sephiroth (HR Guy?)	[email protected]	N/A	Got response. Meeting at Starbucks in front of Jenova Park. 9/15 3:00PM. I’m supposed to come unarmed.
Tyrell Corporation	J.F.	[email protected]	555-555-5678	Got automated response…I think. Can’t be sure if the person I talked to was a robot or not.

If you don’t have Excel, Google Docs has a spreadsheet program that works just as well and has the added advantage of being accessible online.

Guerrilla Tactic #2: Avoid Frontal Assaults

When you send an introductory email, try not to send it to HR if you can help it. It’s best to send your email to a president or the head of the department you want to work for. Gunning for HR would be silly and futile. They’re ready for you, and won’t hesitate to shoot you down.

If you’re applying to a startup with less than 25 employees, you can send an email to [email protected] and chances are your email will be read by someone in charge. Most bigger companies have naming conventions for emails, so if a few email addresses have the format [email protected], it’s a good bet that the president’s (let’s say his name is Mike Mcgillicuddy) email will be [email protected]. It’s worth a try.

Don’t bother sending a cover letter because it won’t be read. Just make sure you put everything you want to say in the body of your email. Your email, just like any sales pitch, should make a potential employer understand exactly what you offer them and how you can affect their bottom line.

This was the email I used:

Subject line: Ahoy! [No reason to be stiff and formal. The subject line is sometimes the only thing read.]

Hey [First name. Else just say ‘Hey guys’ if you’re sending to [email protected]],

I’m looking to get a job with a great startup company in Seattle. So, naturally, when I came across your site I thought I’d send you an email. [People are busy. Get to the point]

I’m young, cheap, and have a lot of useful skills (business development, web development) that would be useful for a web startup. Also, I’m a fast learner and a self starter. Just seven months ago I had the idea for goldhat.org and I didn’t know HTML. I taught myself everything from HTML to CSS to Ruby to Javascript. I still have a lot to learn, but give me a year and you won’t be able to tell the difference between me and one of your star performers.

[This part above is the ‘sales pitch’. I gave a link to what I felt was one of the best examples of my work. Also, I stressed the potential future value I’d offer them and their company.]

I’d love to meet sometime to see if there is something we could do together. If not, perhaps you know of some other companies that might be looking for someone like me.

[Don’t ask for an interview. Just ask to meet. It’s lot easier to have an informal cup of coffee with a hiring manager or CEO than to schedule a formal interview.]

(Resume is attached)

Cheers,

Kenji

Kenji Crosland

Goldhat.org
T: 360.390.8828
E: [email protected]
Contact:

Lastest Blog Post Four Reasons why Cold-Calling is more Effective than Social Media

[Finally, I used an email signature that had links to my website, LinkedIn and Twitter Account as well as a link my latest blog post. The signature is a great way to take advantage of showing a different side of yourself than the bullet points in your resume might. As for formatting your signature, I recommend WiseStamp, an excellent email app that makes your signatures (and you by association) look professional and web savvy.]

Guerilla Tactic #3: Always Gather Intelligence

A good intelligence gatherer knows to look beyond the obvious. They don’t search the job boards because that’s old news. That would be like a spy getting all their info from yesterday’s newspaper. Instead of looking for companies that have announced that they’re hiring, look for companies that have just received funding or have reported better than expected earnings results. If you introduce yourself to a company president or manager right after the cash starts flowing in, they’ll be much more open-minded to creating a role for you. When a company’s gravy train starts rolling in, hijack it.

One good way to gather intelligence is to do a follow-up call to a company after you send an email. The great thing about the follow-up call is that you already have an excuse for calling (did you get that email I sent you?). After you get the hiring manager or president on the line don’t just ask to meet, download them for as much information as you can.

Here are some general guidelines (also good for networking events):

1. Give the president your elevator pitch (doesn’t have to be much different from the email). Just make sure you have it written down and in front of you.

2. Ask to meet for coffee, NOT an interview.

3. If they refuse coffee, start downloading the person on the other line for information. Some possible questions include:

I understand that you’re not hiring now. Might you be hiring someone like me in the future? When would that be? (mark your calendar for a follow-up call!)
What kind of skills/experience would I need to work for your company? What would be the best way to get that kind of experience?
What would be the best position in (The industry you’re applying to) for someone like me? Do you know of another company that might be hiring that kind of person?
Are there any good networking events that you recommend I go to?

When you make follow up calls, you’ll probably get more nos than yeses, so your main goal should be to ask as many questions as you can so that your leads don’t run dry.

Remember, even if a hiring manager isn’t interested in you as an employee, they’re often very happy to give you valuable information free of charge. Take advantage of that. Gather intelligence first and analyze it later. When you’re on the job hunt don’t focus on just getting a job. Widen your perspective a bit; focus on getting the information that leads to a job. Not only will the search be much easier, but you’ll probably also get much a better job.

‘Plan B’ Can Be Better Than You Think

September 23, 2010 by Kenji 11 Comments

It’s been a whirlwind week.

On the 7th of September I decided to start looking for a job. This wasn’t the easiest decision to make. After all, I had high hopes for my web business, and liked to think of myself at least as capable as those internet superstars who managed to make a comfortable living from a great idea and a whole lot of passion.

Driven by these hopes, I spent the better portion of this past year creating the social donations site GoldHat, teaching myself everything I needed to learn and building the app feature by feature until it was done. When I began the project I had no clue if I could pull it off, but I did it anyway. Seven months later, I launched the website. I couldn’t have been more proud of that achievement.

A couple months after my “big launch”, however, I realized GoldHat had a little problem: no one was signing up. Every time I looked at my Google Analytics page, I swear I could hear the crickets chirp. This was a difficult reality to come to terms with, and I spent a lot of my time ruminating about whether I should continue with the project or hit the pause button and look for a J-O-B.

I knew that GoldHat still had the potential to succeed, but what it needed was more time and more money. Not having a job gave me a lot of time, but my bank account balance was reaching zero fast. I knew I could borrow some cash from my folks to keep the site afloat but I was loathe to do so. Let’s just say that they’re not exactly independently wealthy, and my living at home certainly didn’t help.

I felt that I had to make a change when I (celebrated?) my one year anniversary living with my parents, and when GoldHat showed no prospects of becoming popular in the near future. I resisted starting the job search because it felt a lot like “giving up,” but the prospect of pouring another year of effort into a project without knowing whether or not I was on the right track was far from appealing.

Should I stay or should I go? That was the question.

I wrestled with this question for the better part of a month. My main worry was that I would get so busy at my job that I would abandon GoldHat, and I certainly didn’t want all that work to go to waste. I had abandoned other projects in the past because I did little else but spend the day working as hard as I could and the evening drinking beer and watching TV. Who was to say that I wouldn’t do the same this time around?

I eventually came the to conclusion that I could keep a day job and keep GoldHat alive. First of all, I had invested a considerable amount of time in GoldHat. I certainly wasn’t going to stand by and let all that effort go waste. Secondly, I feel that I’ve grown as a person, and I have a better understanding of my strengths, weaknesses, and the direction I want to take my life. This elevated level of self-understanding has helped me tap into a store of energy that I hadn’t known was there.

I realized that staying vs. going wasn’t an either/or decision. I could easily do both, and that’s what I resolved to do.

After I made this decision I formulated my master plan: I’d work for a web startup, get a good feel for the business, save a little money, and maybe hire some people to help make GoldHat better. I could also network with startup folks while on the job, and perhaps get a business partner on board who’d be willing to work with me.

The decision was the hard part. The rest was relatively easy. My experience as a headhunter helped make the job hunt quick and painless. I found a list of Seattle tech startups and I sent a whole bunch of introductory emails out to hiring managers and CEOs, regardless of whether they appeared to be hiring or not. The day after I sent my first round of emails I got a response from Dave Schappelle, the CEO of Teachstreet.com. He didn’t mention any open positions but offered to meet me for coffee.

The meeting went well. I got a call the next day from Dave and he offered me a job. I accepted and a draft of my offer came by email later that day. I never expected to get a job with a startup so soon, but I think the folks at TeachStreet were impressed with the work I had done with GoldHat and were willing to take me on because of it.

I’m grateful to my parents for supporting me during this past year. Although they didn’t complain, I know that it hasn’t been easy for them. I’m just happy that they believed in me enough to let me learn and grow (and eat their food!). Although I didn’t make more than about $400 for all my web businesses combined, in terms of personal growth I feel that this has been one of the most productive years of my life.

Some readers may ask, “Is this the end of cros.land?” After all, the tagline is “Adventures in Self-Employment.” My short answer to this is “no.” As I’ve said before, everyone is self-employed, but very few have that self-employed mindset. At times I too lose sight of the fact that I’m self-employed as well. That’s why I feel that it’s important to continue with this blog.

Note: As I write this I’m already well into my first week at TeachStreet.com. I’m loving it so far and promise to write a blog post about my experience either this week or next.

Some people might be interested about the methods I used to find this job. I’ll be sure to write about that as well. Stay tuned!

Finishing Ambitious Projects

June 7, 2010 by Kenji 7 Comments

Over the course of my life I had started many ambitious projects and had abandoned most of them. I’d begin a project with enthusiasm, but somewhere in the middle I would regard my efforts as feeble and inadequate, and wondered whether or not it all was a waste of time. Forcing myself to work made it worse, and sooner or later I found myself “postponing” my projects indefinitely, giving myself false reassurances that I’d come back to them one day when I had more free time.

I’ve danced this dance longer than I care to admit, and there came a point where all my unfinished novels, all my unpublished stories, and all my other discarded ideas became such a weight on my emotions that starting anything new seemed to require an almost superhuman effort. Eventually, I gave up on bold ideas completely because it was too painful to have great ideas only to realize that I didn’t have the motivation or the discipline to bring them to fruition.

I managed to bury the desire to create for five years. As much as I tried, however, it didn’t go away completely. It registered as dull pain just below the surface, a mixture of restlessness and regret that brought about fatigue, stomach disorders, neck and back pain, and depression. These symptoms were my subconscious’ not so subtle way of saying “Listen up. You’ve got to make a change.”

So change I did. I quit my job to start working for myself. Soon the big ideas I had suppressed for so long came flowing back, and it was not long after this that I got the idea that would change the focus of my career: goldhat.org.

The idea behind Goldhat was simple: I imagined a musician playing on a street corner passing the hat around for the loose change of onlookers. If the musician was good enough and if the crowd was large enough, the musician could earn a decent living. It was then that I thought, “why not bring this street corner to the internet?” A crowd could only get so large on the street, but on the internet you could have tens of thousands, millions even, tossing their spare change into a virtual “hat”. If enough people were willing to give, this could change the way content creators made money on the internet.

Although the idea was simple enough, the steps I needed to take to make it a reality were unclear. I didn’t know how to program. I barely knew HTML, and I had no idea whether or not a social donations site was practical. Considering the emotional baggage of all the projects I had started and abandoned in the past, it’s a wonder that I started this one in the first place, let alone finish it. So, when I finally launched goldhat.org just last week, I looked back at the seven months I had spent working on it and realized that there were five big differences between the project I had finished this time, and all the other projects I had abandoned before.

The five big differences were:

I made no excuses
It was larger than me
It was closer to the money
I was incompetent
I had nowhere to run

1. I made no excuses

When I was writing my novel, I always found excuses to do something else than write. I was either too tired, too stressed out, or simply “didn’t feel like it.” I told myself that whatever writing I did when I was in a less than optimal state would be crap anyway, so I chose not to write. These excuses were pretty lame and deep down I knew that if I had cultivated the discipline of writing every day that it wouldn’t matter if I was tired or stressed out when I sat down to write, but I didn’t want to let go of a convenient cop-out.

When I started working on Goldhat I was well aware that my past excuses hadn’t gotten me anywhere, so I resolved not to make a single excuse for myself this time around. If there was an obstacle, I’d find a way around it. If there was a skill I needed to learn, I would learn it. If the next step to take wasn’t clear at all, I’d gather as much information as I could until I got an idea of what actions I could take to move forward.

2. It was larger than me

It took me a long time to admit it, but one of the main reasons I wanted to write novels and have them published was so that everyone would see how brilliant I was. This kind of ego-driven pursuit was unsustainable because being a writer means receiving criticism and rejection on a daily basis, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that. If my mission was more focused on bringing joy and meaning to my readers, I probably wouldn’t have minded the first few rejection slips that I had received. Instead, because my main purpose was self-glorification, the rejection slips and poor reviews stamped out my biggest source of motivation. I just couldn’t continue when it was gone.

It would be disingenuous to say that some of my motivations for creating Goldhat didn’t stem from wanting approval from others. This time, however, I made sure that my main drive was purpose, not pride. I knew that if I could succeed in bringing goldhat to the world, more starving artists could make money from the content they worked so hard to create. This was something I strongly identified with, and I felt I owed it to all those artists to at least try to make this idea a reality. When times were difficult, the fact that Goldhat was larger than just me was one of the main things that kept me going.

3. It was closer to the money

Although some fiction writers make a lot of money, the majority don’t make much at all. Because the chances of making money in the immediate future were so low as a writer, it was difficult to think of writing when I had bills to pay. I was afraid of starving, and it’s extremely hard to be productive when you’re wondering where the next paycheck is coming from.

Goldhat was different because it was a real business. I could see plenty of ways that the site could generate revenue. Although it wasn’t guaranteed that Goldhat would make money, I felt that the chances of making money in the immediate future were much higher than writing a novel and trying to publish it. I know that money isn’t everything, but sometimes the LACK of money can be a real distraction. The fact that Goldhat had commercial potential meant that I didn’t have to worry about money so much and could focus on whatever I needed to do to make it work.

4. I was incompetent

Because all my teachers and professors had praised my writing in the past, and because I had graduated with honors from the University of Washington’s English department, I had built up an image of myself as a “great writer.” Thinking of myself as a great writer was all I had to buoy my self-esteem. I didn’t want poor reviews and rejection slips to tarnish that image. The easiest way to avoid all that was to stop writing completely. Also, because I thought I was “great,” I felt that I didn’t have to try as hard as other people to get my work in print. This feeling of false superiority didn’t get me anywhere, and it certainly didn’t get me to finish that novel.

How liberating it was to be an idiot! Because I never thought of myself as a programmer, my ego wasn’t tied up in my code. Because I didn’t have a background as a code warrior, I didn’t have to worry about how “perfect” my program was as I was putting it together. Also, because I knew that my knowledge of programming was inadequate, I felt that I needed to work harder just to produce anything of value.

5. I had nowhere to run

When I had a job, it was easier to abandon my writing and immerse myself in work. When I was working on Goldhat, however, I had already quit my job in Tokyo and had moved out of the country. Although I was tempted to get my old job back several times, the fact that I was in another country and would have to reestablish a life that wasn’t right for me was reason enough not to turn back. There were times when I was plagued by self-doubt, and there were one or two times when I seriously considered giving up, but because there was no alternative but to move forward, I had no choice but to find a way to do so.

Working on Goldhat was both a stressful and rewarding experience for me. In many ways, it was hardly any different from working on my novel five years ago. This time, however, I was lucky to have been able to change my attitudes and my perspective. Making these changes didn’t make it any easier, but at least I could accept the fact that it wasn’t easy and find the resolve to do it anyway.

What about you? What ambitious projects have you finished? What helped you push through to the end?

Photo by: hashashin

The Greatest Lesson I Chose Not To Learn

March 31, 2010 by Kenji 11 Comments

Truth is on the other side. Do you have to courage to look?

The only way have principles but not live by them is to avoid the Truth, to fool yourself into feeling that you’ve honored your principles when in reality you haven’t. In order to do this you create excuses to shelter yourself from the Truth, and thus avoid the fear and uncertainty that comes with facing it.

The Truth is incredibly simple, so simple that proverbs like “When there’s a will there’s a way,” and “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” sum them up as clearly as anyone possibly could. The problem with these proverbs, however, is that although they may represent the Truth, they fail to carry the force of the Truth because we’ve spent so much time learning to ignore them. Over time, our denial of the truth in these proverbs have reduced them to nothing more than lifeless clichés.

We don’t just ignore proverbs, however. We ignore even the powerful messages of great works of art, literature and film. These works express profound truths so clearly that you would think they would be obvious to anyone. And yet, all we do is nod our heads sanctimoniously and come up with new excuses of why the truth in this or that particular book or film does not apply to us. In this way, we can have as many principles as we like, and not actually live by any of them. This is something that I have done more often than I’d like to admit.

Ikiru

Ever since I can remember, I believed it was much more important to pursue one’s passions than it was to pursue comfort, riches or security. I had read many books and had seen many films that reinforced this belief. None of them, however, was more powerful for me than Akira Kurosawa’s film Ikiru (Ikiru is the Japanese word for “to live”). This film had conveyed the message of the importance of a living a meaningful life more than anything I had read or seen before. And yet, despite the power of the film, and despite the fact that it was probably my favorite film of all time, I failed to live by its message.

The Original Preview of Ikiru:

The first time I watched the film was just before I went to Japan to teach English. It told the story of bureaucrat by the name of Watanabe who had spent his whole life stamping papers in a dusty office. For 35 years he kept the same routine. He clocked in, stamped papers, clocked out, went home, went to sleep and clocked in the next day. There were no divisions between the days, and all of it blended together into a single lifeless moment that passed by in an instant.

The film takes a turn when Watanabe finds out that he has stomach cancer, and finally makes the realization that he hasn’t done anything meaningful in his life. At first he tries to distract himself with drinking and the Tokyo nightlife. Soon, however, the weight of his immnanent death is far too heavy for him to ignore. He eventually makes the decision to spend his last six months doing something meaningful. Although Watanabe is on the verge of death, he becomes absolutely committed to leaving a legacy in the short time that he has left.

The message of the film was clear: do something meaningful now, or your life will end before you know it. Although I had heard similar messages before, never had it been as powerfully conveyed to me as it had been in that film. I walked out of the theater with tears streaming, and I vowed to live my life on purpose from that moment on.

How I Managed to Ignore The Lesson

That vow, as soon as it was made, was not fulfilled. I acknowledged the truth of the film but failed to live by it. In order to help me avoid the truth of the film, I came up with excuses:

Excuse #1: “I Don’t Need to Change”

Because I believed in living a meaningful life, I had the conceit that I was more enlightened than Watanabe was. After all, I had graduated with a creative writing degree. My life goal at the time was to inspire people with my stories. I wasn’t about to sacrifice my life to get some boring yet secure government job like Watanabe had. Soon after graduation, however, that’s exactly what I did. I latched on to the first easy opportunity that fell in my lap: a teaching job in Japan. All the time that I taught English I never thought of myself as a teacher, but as a novelist. And although I only fiddled with my unfinished novel about once a month, that was enough for me to sustain the illusion that I had chosen the road less traveled by, even though I hadn’t.

Excuse #2: “My Situation Is Different”
Although I sympathized with the plight of the main character, never did I think that I would end up stamping papers in a dusty office, living a life devoid of meaning. This was the easiest excuse for me to make. I wasn’t, after all, a bureaucrat wasting his life away stamping papers. I was an English teacher wasting his life away repeating the most mind-numbingly simple phrases to students over and over (and over) again. When I wasn’t teaching Japanese salarymen how to ask directions to the post office, I partied with friends, watched television and played video games.

Although the context of my situation was different from Watanabe’s in Ikiru, the essence was the same. Watanabe passed his life away in a government office while I did it in a corporate classroom. I clocked in, passed a few hours of my life, went home (maybe after a few drinks), went to sleep and clocked in the next day. Because of these superficial differences it was very easy for me to buy into the illusion that my situation was different.

Excuse #3: “I’ll Change Later, But Not Now”
Eventually I came to terms with the fact that my work was not meaningful for me. I left the teaching world, and fell into a job as a corporate headhunter. Because my job was 100% commission based, I became obsessed with work. I made an average of 80 to 100 phone calls a day and worked about 70 hours a week, sometimes more. The job was much more meaningful for me than teaching English, but I knew still that the job wasn’t ideal for me. I didn’t want to be a headhunter forever, but I thought that I could make a million dollars first and then go off to do something more meaningful later. It took a very long time to admit to myself that by the time I made a million dollars I would probably become trapped by the lifestyle and comfort that my income provided me, making it that much more difficult to leave and start something new.

The Epiphany

It took me five years to finally accept the truth of the movie Ikiru. I had created walls of excuses, rationalizations and delusions to shut the Truth out, but when confronted with the daily realities of my life, my excuses could not pass muster. One by one, they began to fall down. When there were no more excuses left, I had an epiphany: live a meaningful life now, or you never will. This was something I had believed in for a long time, but because I had no excuses left, it seemed infinitely more clear and powerful to me.

It was then that I realized that an epiphany is not a sudden insight into the Truth, but rather it is the moment when when you run out of excuses for yourself and nothing is left but the Truth.

Let me say that again:
AN EPIPHANY IS THE MOMENT WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF EXCUSES FOR YOURSELF, AND NOTHING IS LEFT BUT THE TRUTH.

I distinctly remember the moment when the last excuse came crumbling down. It was the “Not now, but later” excuse. I was sitting in the Tokyo Shinagawa Immigration office waiting to renew my visa when I was suddenly confronted with the fact that I had lived in Tokyo for five years, and had never intended to.

I had originally resolved to stay in the country for just one year, but because I told myself the “Not now, but later,” excuse every day, one year quickly became five. Renewing my visa, and seeing the stamp permitting me to stay in Japan for three more years brought this fact into focus. Although I had known the Truth all along, this was the first time I confronted it without excuses. The moment I saw that stamp on my passport I knew that if I didn’t resolve to leave and start my new life today I would still be telling myself the same “Not now, but later” story in 20 years. The only difference between now and the future was that there would be more stamps. Eventually, there would come a point where I would wake up and realize that, just like Watanabe, I had wasted my entire life.

Two months after I had this realization I quit my job, cleaned out my apartment, and bought a one-way ticket to Seattle. My folks picked me up at the airport and I went back to my old room at my old house. I had no friends, no connections, and no career history in the new areas that I wanted to explore. Was I scared as hell? You better believe I was. The Truth, however, was so obvious to me at that point that I could no longer rationalize against it. I had no choice but to take action.

One year later, I find that I am far from what I can consider an ideal career. I work full-time for little or no income and on top of that I’m still living with my parents, but I have no regrets. In this one year I’ve learned more about myself than any other. I understand my strengths, my weaknesses, my passions and my purpose more than I ever had before. Although I admit that I have few material achievements to my name as of yet, I feel like I’m on the verge of something big. In the near future, I plan to launch a web application which could change the way people do business on the internet. The application itself is complete, and all that’s left is to deal with legal and tax details. Even if this venture fails, I’ll have proof that says to potential employers and business partners that I’m a self-starter and that I follow through with my goals. That right there is worth more than any MBA.

What Are Your Excuses?

Hopefully it won’t take you as long as it did me to accept the Truth. The only way that I can think of to do this is to take a good look at your principles and ask yourself: “Am I really living in accordance with these principles?” If you aren’t, think of the excuses you tell yourself in order to avoid them. The first step in shooting down your excuses is to know exactly what they are. The moment you know your excuses and confront them is the moment you accept the Truth, and will finally start living by the principles you’ve had all along.

The Self-Employed Mindset

March 3, 2010 by Kenji 7 Comments

If you Google the words “How to become self-employed,” you’ll find a lot of advice about quitting your job, creating a plan for your own business, and of course, a few too good to be true pyramid schemes that promise a six figure income in just half a year. Most of these blog articles and MLM pitch pages fail to recognize, however, that not having an employer is only part of what it means to be self-employed.

In fact, all that you need to become self employed is to adopt the self-employed mindset. Adopting this mindset means making the realization that you are already self-employed, that you are, as Brian Tracy says, the “CEO of your own personal service corporation.” You may sell your services temporarily to an employer in return for a paycheck, but ultimately you have the power to decide who you sell your services to, and for how long. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a soldier in the business suit brigade, or a work-at-home T-shirt wearing renegade. You always have the choice to do what you want to do.

If you wish to adopt the self-employed mindset and you’re currently selling your services full-time to a company, it’s important that you yourself these questions:

1. What do I offer my employer?

Do I help increase revenues, reduce costs, or ensure that operations run more smoothly?
Can other people at my salary level offer more value than I do now?

2. What does my employer offer me?

Is my ability to contribute limited by my need for a large company’s infrastructure? Do I need expensive lab equipment or access to my company’s intellectual property in order to contribute value?
How much am I getting paid? Are other people who contribute the same level of value getting paid more or less than I am?
Will the success I achieve in my current job help me toward achieving my long-term goals, or is it irrelevant?
Do I have autonomy at work?
Does my work help me grow?
Does my work have meaning?

3. Does what I offer my employer match what my employer offers me?

Keeping the Balance

Remember: you’re the one who chooses your employer, not the other way around. You choose to gain the skills necessary to entice an employer to pay for your services. As a seller of your services, you must decide how long and for what reasons you’re selling yourself to your employer for. You must ensure that you’re getting what you deserve from your employer. You must also ensure you’re meeting your obligations and contributing value to your company. If these two are not in balance, and you are not aware of the imbalance, you risk getting fired or squandering opportunities that you never knew existed.

When your Contribution is Inadequate
It can be difficult to admit to yourself that you’re doing your job poorly, but the fact of the matter is there is some work that we just aren’t suited to do. After all, no one would buy computer software from Heinz and no one would buy ketchup from Microsoft.

We all have unique and natural talents, and oftentimes the work our employers choose for us turns out to be a poor application of those talents. Don’t be ashamed of your poor performance, but admit to yourself that you are indeed performing poorly. Once you make this admission, you’ll be much more open to the options available to you.

If your work is inadequate but you believe you have the potential to improve, then by all means do so. Take time out of working hours to study and improve your skills. Spend time thinking about ways you could do your work more efficiently rather than doubling your efforts in areas that have proven to yield poor results.

If study doesn’t help, you’re probably much better off doing something else. This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to change jobs. You could, for example, negotiate with your boss to change the scope of your responsibilities so that you’ll be doing something more in line with your natural talents. Negotiations like this are often most effective when you deflect attention away from your poor performance and sell your employer on your greater potential contribution doing some other kind of work.

If there is no way you can change the scope of your responsibilities or no way that you can gain enough skill in the right amount of time, you can always look for another job. It’s a good idea to explore opportunities at other companies the moment you realize you may not be able to make the best possible contribution in your current job. Changing your job is a big step, and should only be taken should all other avenues be exhausted (despite what headhunters may tell you). Sometimes, however, jumping ship is your best option.

Finally, if opportunities at other companies don’t seem like a good solution, it’s probably a good time to start thinking about either starting your own business or changing your career focus altogether. Both of these options entail significant risks, but risk is the price you pay for freedom. And if your contribution is inadequate, chances are you won’t be risking much.

When your Reward is Inadequate
When your employer doesn’t pay you enough for what you do, it’s important to take advantage of the situation as best you can.

First, it’s important to gauge your current market value: the salary that other employers will be willing to pay for your services. Headhunters will usually be happy to provide you with this kind of information. They’ll tell you whether other people doing your kind of work at your level of responsibility are making more money than you are. If that’s the case, they’ll do their best to arrange meetings with the other companies who are willing to offer more.

When you get down to it though, money is hardly the best possible reward for your services. You don’t have to look very far to find a significant amount of evidence that shows money doesn’t buy happiness. The general consensus seems to be is that once you’ve got the basic survival stuff like food, water, and shelter taken care of, money may elevate your happiness level a little, but not very much.

Considering this evidence, it makes sense that when it comes to work satisfaction, other factors should take precedence over money. Factors like:

Autonomy – The freedom to do what you want, when you want. The ability to make decisions without having to defer to someone else.
Growth – Doing work that helps you become a more effective person.
Meaning – Doing work that has personal significance to you.

To me, these factors are much more important than money when it comes to making career decisions. If I had the choice to choose between any of these and more money, money would lose every time.

Even when you think you might deserve one, stop yourself before asking for a pay raise. Why not ask for an autonomy raise, a growth raise, or a meaning raise first? See if you can leverage your boss’ high opinion of you to negotiate a situation where you have more of these three things (and maybe a little more pay on top). If not, it’s probably best that you look for a new job or start your own business. Large corporations don’t tolerate being underpaid for the goods and services they sell. Why should you?

Bringing it into Focus

Having a self-employed mindset is vital to bring clarity to your career goals. When you see yourself as the CEO of a corporation of one, your perspective is no longer limited by the rules set down by your employer, or by anyone else for that matter. You’ll be able to realistically assess your career situation and know which actions you’ll need to take in order to increase both your earning power and your happiness. Becoming self-employed is something that you really can do today.